Sudhama Ranganathan – (Indy Bay Media) – May 29, 2013 – Rape is the last thing we want to think about when we consider our military service members. It just seems like the antitheses of everything they are supposed to stand for, we as a nation are supposed to stand for and what we want others to see when they encounter our military. We want to project strength, but also the best possible representation of the nation that is known for protecting and helping to promote freedoms, liberties and rights worldwide. We want people to think of us in the best possible light and as a people that respect others, both for what we have in common and our differences.

Unfortunately, over the past twelve or thirteen years our military, plus our intelligence services and associated publicly contracted private security and private intelligence contractors, have built a reputation for all manner of sex related hijinks and troubles. They have been known to trade in flesh, as well as to be involved in rape, pedophilia and pederasty.

Contractors, trained during their own US military tenure, have had all manner of problems regarding these things. One company in particular, DynCorp has in fact proven, through a repeated and consistent pattern of such instances, to have a culture within their organization that tolerates such behavior.

Despite the U.S. government’s zero tolerance human trafficking policy, investigations have found that human trafficking by government contractors and subcontractors who operate overseas is still an issue. For example, in 2011, the Commission on Wartime Contracting – an independent, bipartisan legislative commission established to study wartime contracting in Iraq and Afghanistan – concluded that “[e]xisting prohibitions on such trafficking have failed to suppress it.” The commission also concluded that “evidence of the recurrent problem of trafficking in persons by labor brokers or subcontractors of contingency contractors.”

More than 70,000 third-country nationals work for contractors and subcontractors of the U.S. military in Iraq and Afghanistan.

These people thought they had a job that provided a good wage, food and housing. They found out they had none of that. (2008 LOGCAP Scandal)

David Isenberg – (Huffington Post) – May 3, 2012 – I confess: I have an interest in an unseemly topic. Last year I coauthored a report on the subject and testified before Congress about it. The subject is labor trafficking.

This is not, of course, a problem exclusive to the PMSCO sector but neither is it something that has happened only now and then either. Suffice it to say that it enough of a problem that this is the second conference ISOA organized on the issue, the first being seven years ago. The conference program guide minced no words in stating why a conference is necessary:

Labor trafficking is a disgraceful practice that plagues many country as well as international peacekeeping and stability operations. Poverty creates pools of desperate labor at high risk of human trafficking of all kinds, including forced labor. The problem is morally reprehensible but of such enormous complexity it cannot be solved by a single sector and must be addressed by stakeholders working in partnership from all sides — private, governmental, nongovernmental and humanitarians sectors; clients and employers

The Secret Service has yanked the security clearances of 11 members accused of bringing prostitutes to a hotel in Colombia ahead of last week’s pan-American summit, government officials with knowledge of the investigation said Monday. ~ CNN

The Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff told reporters that the military “let the boss down.”

Robert Burns – (The Associated Press) – April 16, 2012 – The top U.S. military officer said Monday the nation’s military leadership is embarrassed by allegations of misconduct against at least 10 U.S. military members at a Colombia hotel on the eve of President Barack Obama’s visit over the weekend.

“We let the boss down,” Army Gen. Martin Dempsey, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, told a Pentagon news conference. He said he regretted that the scandal, which also involved 11 Secret Service agents accused of cavorting with prostitutes at the hotel, diverted attention from Obama’s diplomacy at a Latin America summit.

“I can speak for myself and my fellow chiefs: We’re embarrassed by what occurred in Colombia, though we’re not sure exactly what it is,” Dempsey added.